Epistemics and conversational humour in intercultural first conversations
In this paper, we examine conversational humour in
intercultural initial interactions, in which participants not only
do not know each other, but also come from different cultural
backgrounds, through the lens of epistemics. Our
analysis examines episodes of conversational humour identified in
the Video-Mediated English as a Lingua Franca Conversations (ViMELF)
corpus (ViMELF 2018). The analysis focuses on the design of these humour
episodes, the negotiation of shared knowledge prior to and during
these episodes, and responses to humour bids. Results indicate that
whether and how an attempt at humour is responded to reflects the
epistemic stance/status of participants in that conversation. When
the speaker assumes K- status for the recipient or there is no local
negotiation of relevant knowledge, the laughable is generally
disattended. On the other hand, when K+ status is assumed for the
recipient or the laughable is based on locally co-constructed shared
knowledge and/or knowledge is negotiated, the humour episode is
expanded upon by the recipient. We conclude that the role of
epistemics needs to be more explicitly attended to in the
theorisation of humour more broadly.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Conversational humour in intercultural and initial
interactions
- 3.The role of knowledge in theorising conversational
humour
- 4.Data and method
- 5.The epistemics of conversational humour
- 6.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
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Cited by (2)
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